Just A Quickie with... Steve Crowther, administrator of York Late Music Festival and avant-garde composer.

How long has the Late festival been running?

"It's in its 11th year, and there's a wider spread of music than ever this year, with improvised classical Indian music tonight and jazz by the Anglo-Indian Trio, featuring British pianist Nikki Iles, on Thursday. As long as it has a contemporary theme and a contemporary aspect to a programme, what you put around that can be wide ranging.

"An example of that is the Quatuor Parisii's concert on March 8, when there'll be a performance of Boulez's very rarely performed Livre pour Quatuor, along with Bach fugues and a Beethoven string quartet. Throw them together in a sandwich and they work well together."

Which show is heading for a sell-out?

"The Lindsays are playing here on their final tour next Saturday, when they'll be doing Tippett's Quartet Number 5, which he wrote specifically for them. He broke the mould with that one: he was obsessed with the number four, composing four hours a day, and he'd written four sonatas, four string quartets and four operas but then he wrote that fifth quartet!"

What will be the most cutting-edge concerts?

"Vamos! are 'new kids on the block' and they're here for the first time playing works by Philip Glass, Arvo Part and the British minimalist Stephen Montague tomorrow. Trio Phoenix will be premiering new works by Ana Sokolovic, Annelius van Parys and festival director David Power on Thursday, and Ian Pace's piano recital will be completely contemporary on March 19."

Why should Late Music Festival virgins break their duck this year by seeing a concert?

"Because the concerts are fresh, genuinely fresh. It's worth remembering that Beethoven in his time would have been radical, groundbreaking and contemporary."

York Late Music Festival 2005, National Centre for Early Music, until March 20. Box office: 01904 658338; online at www.ncem.co.uk.

Updated: 08:42 Friday, March 04, 2005